News

Hertzberg will also remain on the committees he has served since being elected to the Senate in 2014

December 21, 2016

SACRAMENTO – Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León today announced that he has recommended appointing Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee as part of legislative assignments made for the 2017-18 session.

The California Money Bail Reform Act of 2017 aims to eliminate the economic disparity and injustice in the pretrial process

December 5, 2016

SACRAMENTO – Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, unveiled legislation today to reform California’s cash bail system and replace a pretrial process that often forces people of modest means to remain in jail until a court can determine their innocence or guilt but allows the wealthy to go free.

California lawmakers next year will make it a top priority to reform the system through which judges award criminal offenders bail, saying courts across the state are punishing “the poor for being poor.”

Click Here to learn more about Sen. Hertzberg's new law decriminalizing fare evasion for youths

November 30, 2016

As the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority considers switching its transit policing contract Thursday, the board of directors will also vote on a plan that would decriminalize fare evasion by riders younger than 18.

For all Muni Metro passengers knew, the free rides they were getting Friday night and Saturday were a holiday gift from the transit system. Little did they know Muni was under attack from a hacker trying to squeeze $73,000 in ransom to unlock the agency’s computer systems.

Muni refused to pay up. Instead, officials shut down the system’s ticket machines, threw open the fare gates as a precautionary move, and contacted the Department of Homeland Security and their own technology division to contain the attack, they said.

SB 272, the Local Government Open Data Act, went into effect on July 1, but not all local agencies are following it

Traditional Polling Places to be Replaced by Convenient Vote Centers

September 29, 2016

SACRAMENTO – A measure authored by Senator Ben Allen (D – Santa Monica) and Senator Robert Hertzberg (D – Van Nuys) to transform the way elections are conducted was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown today. SB 450 authorizes counties to replace neighborhood polling places with conveniently located vote centers and allow voting in the 10 days preceding and election; it also requires every voter to be mailed a vote-by-mail ballot.